What can images and words do in times of war? Unable to oppose weapons, powerless to change a reality that violence is dislocating before our very eyes, they seem to have been entirely stripped of their power to act. The emergency, the fear and the chaos are overturning common sense, inverting the hierarchy of values, twisting the message and its messenger.
In the midst of lives that threaten to collapse or are already under rubble, the conviction of photographers and poets alike is to continue to believe in the power of images and words as objects of possible rescue. They patiently gather tiny fragments of meaning, collecting and piecing together snippets of stories that are in tatters, but which hold intact in their hearts an infinity of worlds to come.
In the “Ukraine, vision(s)” exhibition, photographers from the MYOP agency initiate a dialogue with six authors who are members of PEN Ukraine, an organisation that defends the work and creative freedom of Ukrainian writers, poets and playwrights.
For more information : “Ukraine, Vision(s)”
Cover Image: Kids play by the side of the street, in recently liberated Izyum, Ukraine, 18 septembre 2022
© Adrienne Surprenant / MYOP for The Wall Street
